Fairly quiet day today, which made a change as the last couple have been quite hectic. Got quite a lot of work done on the books this afternoon.
Dark Secrets is coming along well, and a friend has offered to do the new cover. That’s really the easiest book as I’m just combining it with Shadows in the Night and they have both obviously already been published. I’m not changing any of the original text though; just putting it all in sequence as it happened.
The autobiography will take a little longer as that does require time and consideration. Pact with Evil is proving comparatively easy to write, as the facts and testimonials are already there. It is not a question of even having to give my own viewpoint (though, of course, I have made clarifying comments); just let the evidence speak for itself as it all stands on record. But as well as no shortage of manuscript to choose from, I also have many exclusive photographs to choose from. You know a (writer) friend once said to me that a photograph can say more than a thousand words. Well, that’s several thousand words I’ve been saved from writing!
I guess I have an added advantage over some other authors in that the interest is already there. I am constantly being asked about publication dates (and so forth) from people wanting to know about facts and relationships in my life. I really don’t know why actually, because I’m just an ordinary person. But there you have it. That’s just how it is. People want to know.
Waiting for a bus this afternoon to go into town. It was a lovely day and it wasn’t far, but I was just feeling lazy. Sitting alone on a long red seat in the open shelter enjoying a cigarette, when suddenly, a man appeared from around the side. He was probably about sixty five and almost immediately, he pointed up to a tiny sign near the roof and said . . . “You’d better put that cigarette out, it’s a thousand pound fine if you get caught!”.
Well, my first reaction was that he was joking so I smiled and said . . . “I don’t intend to get caught!”.
Then I realised that he was deadly serious . . .“You will if I report you”, he said aggressively.
“Go ahead there’s a phone box over there”, and I pointed to a phone box just up the road.
That must have ‘thrown’ him a little, because he walked and sat down at the other end of the bench. “So you expect me to sit here and breathe the smoke?”
“Yes”, I replied, “unless you go and stand outside”.
Now, the shelter itself was virtually open with only half a back, one side and a roof, but he actually got up and stood outside on the pavement, all the while glaring at me while I sat there and continued to smoke. At the same time he kept looking up and down the street, and I am sure if anybody had come by (they didn’t) he would have tried to ‘grab’ them as a witness.
I was really enjoying the whole thing because I knew there was absolutely nothing he could do; more so because the cigarette had only just been lit, and I had several minutes left to smoke it slowly and deliberately.
I swear to heaven that sometimes I just cannot understand human nature with all its paranoia’s and distorted phobia’s. In fact, it was moments like this that made you wonder if the whole world had suddenly gone entirely mad!
David
7 responses
Dear David
Bravo!
“So you expect me to sit here and breathe the smoke?”
“Yes”, I replied, “unless you go and stand outside”.
I’m getting fed up of people coughing & making remarks if I smoke 50 yards down the other end of a railway staion platform.
Regards Matt
Hi David,
Amazingly thousands of young men died during WWI & WWII for us to be free from oppression. What a waste of human life! They may has well stayed at home, because the Europeans got us after all! Due to our spineless politicians.
Regards.
Wayne.
You know Matt,
I can respect people who don’t smoke, or who don’t want to smoke anymore I don’t want to sound like a hyporcrite . . . but I really can.
But there is such a thing of taking things ‘from one extreme to the other’.
The incident I spoke about today, for God’s sake!, took place in the open air. (Highgate Woods were only 20 yards away from the bus stop). THAT is what annoyed me; the fact that it wasn’t really affecting the person in any way – or if it was, it was only in his mind.
But this happens all the time now with some people. Gosh! How many tmes I have encountered bouts of ‘psychological coughing’ by people I pass on the street if I happen to be smoking. But it is not the actual effect of the cigarette, it is purely psychological!
Again, I guess this comes back to human nature; rather the way in which the mind can so easily be conditioned by propaganga.
Thanks for your support on that one, Matt.
As soon as I finish typing this, I’m going to have another cirarette!
David
I can’t comment on smoking as it gives my fur an unpleasant odour, but here is a news story that is of much concern to us four-legged creatures. Baldry’s goat is livid.
“Airline sacrifices goats to appease sky god”
Hi Wayne,
Thank you for your reply.
Your point about ‘oppression’ is really such a loaded pont, that its really difficult to offer any answer too simply.
I do agree that we have all been ‘supressed’ by governments of different countries in one form or another. But I suppose, in the end, it all comes down to individual people (of which there seem to be few) who are prepared to speak out against injustices (however trivial) and not ‘go along’ with the masses.
Anyway, let me welcome you here! And please do post again if you want,
David
The old gentleman was perfectly correct, you can indeed be fined one thousand pounds for smoking ‘in’ a bus shelter, though this only applies to Greater London, being an ordinance of Generalissimo Ken Livingstone. You ought to consider yourself lucky, because this is an incredibly minor penalty by the standards of the twenty-first century nanny state: for cutting down a tree, on your own property, without state permission (which is seldom granted, even when the roots of the tree are destroying the foundations of your house) you get a fine of thirty-five thousand pounds and a criminal record. If you dump rubbish on a highway, you are liable to pay fifty thousand pounds, and this law is so vaguely worded that it could apply to someone who merely drops a crisp packet.
Gareth J. Medway
[The above was posted by Gareth from my computer – David.]
Ken Livingstone – don’t get me started……ggrrr!
I did remind someone who was smoking on Platform 2 at Feltham Station to put out his ‘ciggie.’ Not because I am a control freak, nanny-state apologist, but because there were ticket inspectors about, and if they had caught him, they’d have copped £1,000 from him. Rather he kept his money in his pocket, than give it up to South West Trains, who squeeze enough out of us poor travellers as it is, was my reasoning.
Crisp packets, etc – I have actually watched (and scolded) people who have deliberately thrown litter on to the pavements, when a littler bin was yards away. Now THAT makes my blood boil!